Concealed handgun license (CHL) holders now are able to openly carry a handgun in most public places. The change in the law, which went into effect Friday, came as a result of a grassroots movement by open-carry activists and the fulfillment of a promise made by Gov. Greg Abbott during his campaign for governor.

Regardless of whether you support or oppose the idea of open carry, you will be confronted by it. Therefore, it is important to understand the people who will carry firearms in public.

There are nearly 826,000 active CHL holders, according to a 2014 report from the Texas Department of Public safety. (This is about 3 percent of the total Texas population of 26.9 million, according to the U.S. Census Bureau data for the same year.

Put simply, 3 out of 100 people you encounter each day in Texas are licensed to carry a handgun in public. CHL holders might be in line with you at the grocery store, your kids might play on the same sports teams with kids whose parents are CHL holders, and they might be among your friends and family. But with open carry being optional among CHL holders, you might not even encounter an openly carried firearm at all.

So, CHL holders can be around us. But what kind of people are they?

DPS has reports on its website listing the number of criminal convictions in Texas by year and shows those committed by CHL holders. In 2013 — the most recent data available — Texas had a total of 50,869 criminal convictions. Of those, only 158 were committed by CHL holders.

That means that CHL holders accounted for less than one-half of 1 percent of all criminal convictions in 2013. If you assume that each of those 158 criminal convictions was of a different CHL holder, then the number of CHL holders who received criminal convictions in 2013 represented less than one-fourth of 1 percent of the total CHL-holding population.

That data shows that CHL holders tend to be upstanding citizens.

Furthermore, to be approved for a CHL, a person undergoes thorough criminal background checks, their fingerprints are recorded and kept on file and their residential history is scrutinized.

So, on Jan. 1, the only change was that the guns that already were around you in the hands of a small group of citizens can, at times, be more visible.

Now, the issue is this: Just because you can carry your gun openly, should you?

The idea held by many that a visible gun will help deter crime faces off squarely with the equally popular notion that an exposed gun makes you the first target for a motivated criminal.

Neither idea is wrong.

A concealed gun is a passive reminder of the responsibility the carrier has to de-escalate confrontation and to conduct oneself with poise. Someone who carries a concealed handgun can be secure in his or her ability to defend life and property if needed without anybody else knowing.

The openly carried gun is a more active reminder, but it also brings its own set of challenges and has the secondary effect of sending a visible signal to others. With social communication comes the ever-present possibility that signals can be misinterpreted.

We do not live in a society in which everyone has the same understanding or feeling about guns. A responsible gun owner should feel some sense of duty to bring into the fold those with less knowledge about firearms. Someone openly carrying a gun should be aware that the signal they send can serve to reinforce another person’s already negative feelings about firearms.

The wearer of an openly carried gun faces a unique problem that the concealed carrier does not. The open carrier should be aware that weapons retention is an ever-present issue. The same holster you used for concealed carry might not be suited to open carry. Law enforcement professionals train to be constantly aware of their surroundings and usually wear duty holsters that incorporate three different levels of retention. Have you thought about what you would do if someone reached for your gun? What if that person is bigger than you?

With great power comes great responsibility. A license to carry, whether you choose to do it openly or concealed, brings with it the responsibility that you train until you have intimate knowledge of the firearm. The eight- hour CHL class includes only a basic shooting test and doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of what your ability should be with the gun you choose to carry.

Have you practiced shooting with an elevated heart rate? The ability to shoot one-handed and weak-handed is also critically important. Clearing malfunctions and reloading while keeping eyes on the target should also be skills a concealed or open carrier seeks to perfect.

Being a well-trained concealed carrier was always important, but now, the open carrier places himself or herself under public scrutiny as an example of how a safe gun owner should act, making the need for advanced levels of training even more important.

The Second Amendment refers to a citizenry that is equipped with firearms of reasonable offensive capability and, most importantly, is well-trained in their use. In my opinion, shooting some holes in paper every so often or taking a CHL class is not enough training to comply with the spirit of what our Founding Fathers intended.

A quick Google search for “defensive pistol training Midland” brings up a full page of returns in our area, ranging from a low light class, shooting from vehicles, shooting on the run, and a class specifically for women. The classes all start at $200-$300.

The bottom line is, if you can afford to buy a gun and go through the license-to-carry process, you should be able to afford advanced training. And don’t stop with just one class. If you choose to carry a firearm, it is your responsibility to constantly be working to increase your level of training in order to uphold the intentions of our Second Amendment.